The challenge of being inspirational

“A mediocre teacher tells,

A good teacher explains,

A superior teacher demonstrates,

A great teacher inspires.”

So say the Chinese in one of their most famous proverbs. And who would disagree? Most of us have probably sat in a classroom with the above-mentioned “mediocre” teachers listening to them “tell” us about something that, for some reason, we should care about. Presumably, very little of what we were told at such times has stayed with us. 

We’ve also probably listened to many “explanations” and witnessed various “demonstrations,” slightly more of which may have had at least some positive impact on our learning. But when was the last time you were “inspired” by a teacher? And what does it mean anyway?

The word “inspire” comes from the late Latin “in-spirare,” with “in” suggesting motion and direction, and “spirare” meaning “to breathe.” In other words, “breathing in” – but breathing in what?

The word also carries, or used to carry, connotations of a divine or a spiritual agency that was doing the “breathing” and infusing the minds of people with “inspiration.” Likewise, poets during the Romantic period talked of the “wind” as though it was the breath of a divine being, providing them with the creative impulse to produce their great works of art. How detached from every day life at school now does all of this seem?

The problem is, of course, that being an “inspiring” teacher is a risky game to play. “Inspiration” is a magical and unknown process, and although poets like Wordsworth claimed to write their best work after receiving a sudden impression from nature, we know that the final drafts of the poems he produced were labored over for a long time. We may get some wonderful ideas while on a walk through the country, but the realization of these ideas takes time – the brain needs this time to play around with the original idea before developing it into something worthwhile. As Leo Tolstoy pointed out, “None of the important questions in life can be resolved by a rational person through considerations of the immediate results and consequences.”

But it is these “immediate results” that our school systems demand from students. We set regular assessment tasks with deadlines. We structure our curriculum so that certain learning objectives must be achieved before moving onto the next stage. We spend hours analyzing student data from these assessment tasks, trying to understand “how” a student is learning and whether or not they have reached our desired objectives.

Can the “inspired” student really be expected to meet these expectations on such a regular basis? Can we really blame teachers for sacrificing any attempt to “inspire” students and reverting to “telling” students what they need to remember to pass the upcoming test? Who would be brave enough to wait for the fruits of the inspiration to reveal themselves with administrators demanding hard evidence of student learning?

The reality is that assessment results are never going to show us whether or not we have been “inspirational” with our students. We can never know if we have really done a “great” job, at least according to the Chinese. Instead, we have to rely on anecdotal evidence, some of which may not occur until many years after our students have graduated. Even so, there is nothing to stop us from trying to be inspirational, whatever the consequences.

Those people who we would truly call “inspirational” seem to share a number of characteristics. Firstly, they openly display a love of their subject and bring a level of energy to the situation that triggers the necessary emotional investment from the listener that will result in real learning taking place. Secondly, they lead or teach by example, personifying “inspiration” in all that they do, and personally meeting the high expectations that they set for their students. Finally, they understand that the style of communication is just as important as the substance, and work to perfect their performance on the classroom or lecture hall stage. For Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King, Roger Federer and many others, the above criteria are what connect them all as “inspirational” people and leaders.

So perhaps, as teachers, we can aspire to greatness after all – we just need to keep the faith and accept the fact that we’ll never know whether or not we’ve succeeded.

***Joe Lumsden holds an MA in English literature and teaches English, humanities and theory of knowledge in the IICS Secondary School. An educator with more than 11 years experience, he serves as the school’s IB Middle Years Program coordinator.